Students for Sudoku: 27 team tournament showcases puzzle skill

Nearly 100 elementary school students from nine area schools converged on Nevada Union High School Thursday to take part in a 27-team sudoku tournament.

The object of the logic-based, combinatorial number-placement puzzle is to fill a nine by nine grid with digits so that each column, each row, and each of the nine three by three subgrids that compose the grid, contain all of the digits from one to nine. The puzzles provided to the young competitors were all the same and had only one possible solution and the team that completed both sides of the sudoku sheet first, with no mistakes, would take the prize.

Students from Lyman Gilmore, Scotten, Nevada City School of the Arts, Echo Ridge, Seven Hills, Mt. St. Mary's, Forest Charter, Chicago Park and Deer Creek all took part.

When all was said and done Deer Creek's Ben Marcrum, Brandon McCallum, Kenna Powell, Clay Rodgers, and Connor Pack took home first-place honors, with Forest Charter students taking second place, and Echo Ridge taking third.